Tuesday, March 31, 2009

there are these awkward turns of the pagethat mark our hands with paper cut remindersthat this almost did not exist at allthat in more ways then we care to admitwe had moved on with this thing we coin a lifewith new characters and episode titlesthe lead roles played by different actorsthough i think they all tried to playthat nothing across the screen had changed

it all seemed to fall into placemaking perfect sense to the untrained eyebut up close the door was hanging loose from the hingesthe pieces warping and peeling at the cornersand I emptied out all the jars of pastebut all that stuck together were strands of my hairand notes to a song I'd forgotten the lyrics to

at a distance I guess I had it allbut there were these vacant gaping holesonly filled up with my fire spat wordsthat tore at the widening air between usI was trying to crack open the surfacewide enough for the whole world to see

perhaps I just wanted to wound youto see if you would stand up and fightor flee and run from mebecause at the start I'd wanted thisto be my Before Sunrisebut the script was ill-conceivedthe production rushed

what did you see when you looked closely at usdid you notice the bullet hole signs of our pending goodbye

we were each other's mardi gras masksbut now I need mine backthe painted lady is letting go of her disguisesas I stand by the window to wave at the floats rolling by

I wish you safe travelshand you a box of bandages as you tape up the last boxbecause these next days will bleed all of usseparation is like thateven when it is for the best

and we will hurt while we healas we learn to believe in the dance again

Nearly everything I've ever written, be it a short story, or a novel in progress (one day I'll finish one of them, I am determined), has had a character inspired by one of Leonard Cohen's songs. He is a muse of mine, and I do not remember a time in my life that I was not touched in some way by his music.

I still remember the first Cohen song I heard, where I was, and how it affected me. My Mother had one of his albums leaned up against these giant speakers. The stereo system was one of those impressive and dinosaur-sized 70's get-ups that took over one entire wall of our living room, and I loved it. I would drag my books or sheets of paper out into that front room, and set myself down in the corner closest to the music, and lose an entire afternoon in music.

It was a warm day, possibly late Spring, and my Mother was busy cooking something in the kitchen. I can recall the smells of the kitchen wafting into the room, and Fleetwood Mac's Rumors album had just finished. She yelled out to me to put something else on, and Leonard's album was right there in arm's reach.

I actually knew this song from Judy Collins' In My Life album, she was a favourite of my Mother's. The song Suzanne was actually a poem first, called "Suzanne Takes You Down", published in Cohen's book of poetry, 'Parasites of Heaven'. It is second only to "Hallelujah", as Cohen's most covered song.

I think what I love most about his songs, and his poetry, is how he captures such stories and characters - what life he gives them, and the plots that just build from each lyrical refrain, and melodic arc.

I've said for a long time that music is my oxygen, my sanity, the way I focus and often exist. Lately I have noticed that it is my muse, though I'm sure I always knew this, never writing a word in a notebook, composition book, blank blog space, or even the backside of a postcard without a song playing in the background.

So now, as I push myself through to finish a story that keeps building, determined to not be the girl who never finishes anything anymore, I find myself with my ears open, taking in every turn of a lyric, and progression of sound. I've found myself pulling over to the side of the road, tears streaming down my face, as I see something so vivid in my mind.

Characters seem to take over, nudge at me, tug at me until I stop and look, or listen - this is the path, over here, and don't forget...

I always heard writers talk about that at some point the story takes over. That you become, as the writer, a conduit - or perhaps it is just that you become so entrenched with the characters that you become pieces of them. As if you are playing a role on a stage, layering traits over your own, and mixing them until they are one.

All I know for sure is that I am carrying them around with me - everywhere - and they seem to have song preferences. By the end of this story I think I my end up with a soundtrack that is volumes long. Time life will have to come around and make an informercial for it, or something.

"This is the moment that you knowThat you told her that you loved her but you don't.You touch her skin and then you thinkThat she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.Yeah, she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me.

I spent two weeks in Silver lakeThe California sun cascading down my faceThere was a girl with light brown streaks,And she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.Yeah, she was beautiful but she didn't mean a thing to me.

I wanted to believe in all the words that I was speaking,As we moved together in the darkAnd all the friends that I was tellingAll the playful misspellingsand every bite I gave you left a mark

Tiny vessels oozed into your neckAnd formed the bruisesThat you said you didn't want to fadeBut they did, and so did I that day"

Tiny Vessels ~ Death Cab For Cutie

I could write this scene out, so clear in my mind. Perhaps change the location slightly, somewhere closer to the ocean, or the airplanes. But, I feel it, deeply, and I can see it, so vividly.

When I bought this album I remember this song hit me in a way that I thought would leave a bruise. I remember thinking that I'd felt that way, from the perspective of the singer. And now, I think I know what it feels like to be the girl the song is about. Or maybe I read too much into music, into memories, into my own version of the story.

We write our own endings sometimes, especially when they are so murky and impossible to define, and especially when they are not really endings, at all.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

"Come back and make up a good-bye at least! Let's pretend we had one." ~ Clementine

Goodbye is sometimes just as important as hello, though goodbye often goes unsaid, or is rushed, because we all tend to be wary of sentimental exits, and public displays of emotion. But, what if the goodbye you raced through, cutting it off before the real words were expressed, was actually the final goodbye? What if you never see that person again? Or, if you do, it is different between you, distant, awkward, or redefined?

Perhaps you will look back and think "I wish we would have had a real goodbye", the kind with a long, lingering kiss and an honest "I don't want to let you go."

"The first show on a tour is like kissing someone for the first time. It's a kind of wonderful blur. It happens in a flash of blinding light as if time has no weight or meaning and then, suddenly, it's over. After the initial thrilling, terrifying dive into it, the experience never again has the same intensity. Some of the magic, wired energy slips from your hands - maybe because your nerves have settled - and though you strive to reclaim it every night thereafter, you do settle into a workaday routine of gig after gig."

The film Dedication, which I watched and wrote about last night, had a soundtrack that was as unforgettable as the film itself. Eccentric, bittersweet, melancholic, and full of an array of mood swings, much as Henry himself was.

Cat Power's Metal Heart was the standout favourite, almost upstaging the scene it resides in. When Metal Heart began to play, and Chan's voice trilled in, the combination of scene and song brought me to tears.

South Ambulance's Davy Crocket starts out with a dance club beat that quickly, and somewhat abruptly, transforms into something worth staring at one's shoes and sway about the room to. I could do without the clumsy beginning, but the rest is quite swoony and worth playing on repeat.

You can stream the EP here, which includes a cover of Pale Saints' 'Kinky Love'.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Henry: "I've spent my whole life... wanting something... and doing my very best not to find it. Never even going near the places it might be... And suddenly, I've got the goddamn thing practically chained around my neck."

Lucy: "What are you talking about?"

Henry: "You. You. You're the, you're the... You're, you're- you're the goddamn thing. Ahhh, uh. I mean... You're, you're. I can't describe you... uhh, I don't, I don't write that kind of shit, I write... You know, the people who write, who write the real books, the love books, and the poems, and even those stupid little fucking novels with the hunky assholes on the cover..."

Lucy: "Stop... "

I watched this film tonight. It was fraught with things that affected me, touched me, upset me, and in the end, moved me. Henry and Lucy. So much broken-ness in this film, pain, hurt, and yet there was this thread of hope that meandered its way into every scene. As much as at times I wanted to dislike the characters, or turn my eyes away, I could not stop watching, caring, understanding, feeling, and just connecting to them.

I suppose I saw some of myself in the both of them, for different reasons, and to varying degrees. And yes, I did indeed see a bittersweet sense of hope.

Like the tiny rock he gives to Lucy, loses, finds, then gives to her again, the film was one of a kind.

I prefer this ending,but we do not always get to choose the ending, do we?

"I picture you in the sun, wondering what went wrong.And falling down on your knees, asking for sympathy.And being caught in between, all you wish for, and all you've seen.And trying to find anything, you can feel, that you can believe in."

"Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?"The Reader ~ Bernhard Schlink

How many planes are taking off right now, and how many are just landing? Is there any symmetry to the timelines and destinations? I know there are flights that occur daily, and the rhythms that happen, of take-offs and landings, is something to count on, rely upon, plan an escape to.

I wonder if you watched from the window from that room up so high, could you tell the time by just watching the planes ascend into the smog filled Los Angeles sky? I suppose it is a more precise measure then a newly acquired wrist watch, especially when you trade one timezone, for another.

And I will always remember that airport, and the significance it has to me. The trips taken, the people met at baggage claim, or in hotel doorways, and the future adventures that may, or may not, take place. I have maps and travel books stacked on a shelf, the one I sleep next to. I take them out often, lay on the floor and peruse the street names, cafes, places of so-called interest - and I dream, wish, want, and desire.

I miss the sound of the plane's on the tarmac, the lighted towers that change colours, blinking off and on, and I miss the feel of an over-filled suitcase dragging behind me, and a ticket to ride between my fingers. I miss what it all once meant, and what it still means, to me.

"One day I'll fly awayLeave all this to yesterdayWhy live life from dream to dreamAnd dread the day when dreaming ends."

Mid-afternoon, with music stuck in my head, and the smell of coffee brewing in the next room. These are stolen moments when words criss-cross and light up my fingertips, while dreams still in their feigned disguises remind me of my hopes and fears. I discovered this song in a found mix, it was hidden amongst the familiar and unknown, the way most beauty is.

It reminded me of an afternoon, a saturday, working at Tower Records, in Chicago. There was this girl who was visiting from New York, and we had one of those conversations usually shared with those people you trust your soul with. But, sometimes strangers have that ability to peel back the surfaces, don't they?

She laughed and half-whispered a moment shared with a boyfriend she'd recently lost, and I listened. She asked about this band, and I told her I'd only heard them once, in a bookstore in Portland, and how the boy behind the counter with the pale blue eyes had told me the name.

She bought everything I recommended, laughing at how I now held a secret of hers, so she might as well take back with her some things I sang along to.

I have no idea what her name was, but I wrote her into a story once. and this song played, repeated, and played again, while I wrote it.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

"I could make you satisfied in everything you do,all your secret wishes could right now be coming true,And be forever,with my poison arms around you."

Angeles ~ Elliott Smith

Tonight I hate Los Angeles. Tonight I hate being this alone. Tonight I am hurting in so many ways, and I am finding it hard to breathe and just go on. Let go, it should be so easy, I've done it before. I know about loss, and I know about giving up with grace, and I know about being the one that loves less.

But tonight, with the air thick and playing at a prologue to Summer with it city stuck warmth coming through, I just wish I felt differently. I wish it were easier. I wish I did not look in the mirror and see time slipping by. I wish I saw some remnant of beauty and hope in the reflection. But tonight, right now, all I see is poison and pain, and the echo of an empty room.

I know some of this is the physical pain I'm feeling. I've been in tears most of the night, and I loathe feeling as if I cannot take care of myself. I can, and I will, but tonight I feel like giving in, and giving up.

I keep hitting replay on this song, and each time it makes me cry a little bit more.

"All of us have had this experience. At some point, we have each said through our tears, "I'm suffering for a love that's not worth it." We suffer because we feel that we are giving more than we are receiving. We suffer because we feel our love is unrecognised. We suffer because we are unable to impose our own rules. But ultimately there is no good reason for our suffering, for in every love lies the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we come to spiritual experience. Those who are truly enlightened, those whose souls are illuminated by love, have been able to overcome all the inhibitions and preconceptions of their era. They have been able to sing, to laugh, to pray out loud; they have danced and shared what Saint Paul called, "the madness of saintliness". They have been joyful - because those who love conquer the world and have no fear of loss. True love is an act of total surrender."

I am not quite sure what my beliefs are in regards to souls, and where we end up after this life. I have moments where I think I believe in some things, and inklings on my feelings about other things, but in the end I tend to believe in the possibility of many things. Perhaps I just agree that I'll be surprised when the time comes, and I look forward to finding out.

As for souls, I do not know how to define them, or what I even consider a person's soul to be. We toss the term around so much in this life. Soul mates, soul searching, things that move our soul, break our soul, touch our soul; but do we actually know how to describe what our soul is?

Is it the unique parts of ourselves, our psyches and consciousness? Is it the tastes we have, and the things make us love some things, and some people, and not others? Is it that part of us that cannot leave us, no matter how destroyed our bodies may become, unless we truly die? Is it something that transcends this life? Is it what comes out in our art, our words, our creations, and when we give love to someone else?

I would like to picture our souls as the parts of us that do not have to do anything except just be. The child in us that still plays on the swings and the roundabout and the slide at the playground. The artist in us that paints, draws, writes, sings, creates even if they have a full-time job and children at home. The lover in us that spends hours in bed, taking their time with every inch of each other's skin, not rushing, and not wanting the moment to end. And, the friend in us that holds themselves out there when no one else will, or can, to entwine their hand in another's, even when the other doesn't know how to ask for the hand.

I think that is what I like to see souls have.

And maybe, just maybe, the dark - the ever after - the what comes after this life - is just a meeting up of all the souls who will now spend eternity playing, creating, loving, and holding hands.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

"We lean against railings describing the colors and the smells of our homelands acting like lovers

How did we get here to this point of living I held my breath you said something"

'You Said Something (live)' ~ PJ Harvey

Have you ever noticed the immense power of words? How something can be said, even a few syllables, in person, in a letter, typed, written, whispered, bled, and everything can just change. Or, everything can stay the same, go on. or not. But those words, no matter how you try to set them free, they live in the deep folds of your skin, in the taste of life itself, in the wallpaper of our souls.

I know, for me, I have this insatiable need for words, for that language to ricochet from all corners of my mind, my ears, my lips. I always feel the deep recesses of who I am, overwhelming, over-flowing, making me feel that I always have so damn much to say. And so much I want to have said, or wish I'd said. I want to be the catalyst for all the words of everyone to come spilling out, all over, all over me. I feel this need to know, to know so much; to learn, and to hear the flowing of words, again and again.

Or maybe I just want to hear your words spoken to me again, with my words answering back.

I know I hold so many words that have been said inside of me. They sneak out in so much of who I am; in my breathing, in my writing, in the way I think, in the way I react. So many nights I lie in bed, sleepless, replaying so many words, over and over. And I know I dissect too much, I evaluate too much. I read too much into words. But, it is part of who I am, how I am, my own breed of insanity, I suppose.

There are silences that heal, that are necessary, that albeit sometimes painful, are the best thing for us. Sometimes there is nothing better than a dimly lit room, a blank book in front of you to write in, and the only sounds breaking thru are the passing cars, or some stray felines singing into the middle of the nght air; to each other perhaps? to the moon? to themselves?

There are other times when the silences hurt because you feel there is so much to still say, and yet never enough time, or perhaps not the right time, or any time at all. Maybe the time has passed, as it often does between people we've known, and even though there lies a pile of unspoken somethings, they exist only in one person's psyche, in that one person's moments of silence.

We take the roles of the dream's contents, or the dreamers, without any say in it really. Once in that role, is there ever a chance to change it? To switch places? To land on the proverbial same page at the same time? In those moments of complete silence when your thoughts linger on someone in particular, can they feel it, too? Is that when the unspoken actually is spoken in some way, even if just in a feeling that comes over you, or a dream that you cannot seem to shake?

Already a sensation in the UK, La Roux, who were voted by the BBC as #5 in the "Sounds of 2009", combine 80's synth sounds with the post-modern electroclash edge that has become a citylife sensation in dj'ed dance clubs, and indie music mixes, everywhere. The name La Roux, French for "a red-haired one", was selected from a baby book of names by red-haired singer/writer Ely Jackson. She is the daughter of Trudie Goodwin, star of the British procedural drama, The Bill. Co-producer and co-writer, Ben Langmind, help to create La Roux's razor sharp lyrics and electro-magnetic up-tempo beats, creating a perfect-fit partnership.

Yazoo, Erasure and The Communards come to mind when listening to La Roux, as does the inevitable Depeche Mode comparison that most of the post-80's electro bands/artists that have come around in the last few years get affixed on their "sounds like" t-shirts. Jackson herself recalls being raised on Nick Drake and Neil Young records, and that her first songwriting experiences came in the form of a girl singing heartbreaking poetry, and strumming on an acoustic guitar. Her now musical partner encouraged her to trade the guitar in for a Korg keyboard, but to keep her poetic, somewhat melancholic songs in tow.

The meeting-up of electro-keyboard pressing, which cannot help but harken those 80's pop predecessors, with Jackson's disarming, high-pitched crooning, and her emotionally-wrought lyrics (she's been cited as crying between lyrical refrains, on-stage) is hard to ignore. I look forward to catching La Roux live during their mini-U.S. tour this April. It has been ages since I've been to the Roxy, but I think this is a good enough reason to make a return.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

My Grandmother used to tell me that all the answers we seek lie within ourselves, but that we fill our lives with too many noises and distractions to ever hear the answers. She was also the one who told me, over and over again, to follow my bliss. I used to say that last one, over and over again, to everyone I knew. It became a slogan of sorts, and friends of mine would send me it written in letters, on a kitchen magnet, on the front sides of postcards, and even as a theme to a music mix once.

I'm not sure I ever truly followed my own, or my Grandmother's, beautiful advice. Nor have I ever embraced silence and solitary moments enough to ever shut up the rattle and hum of daily living, and truly listen to my own thoughts, and answers.

But now I try to find those moments. I steal them if I have to. Waking up earlier than the sun in order to nick a bit of time from the day, alone in the front room of my small apartment, leaning close to the window where I an almost feel the air from outside chill my skin. Or I stay longer than necessary in the shower, letting the warm water trickle over me, like rain, washing away the stains of heartache and disappointment, confusion and fear. I try to find that spot in myself that isn't worried about money, survival, understanding, or what anyone else thinks of me. I try to find that spot in myself that is just that, myself.

I used to gauge my decisions on how they affected others, or by how others would perceive me. I put so much of myself out there to everyone I knew, walking around like I'd been turned inside out, my insides raw and jagged for all to see. I let the judgement, whether uttered or unspoken, make too much of a difference in who I was, and what I did.

But where is the truth in that? Where are the answers in other people's biased opinions? And in the end, if we fall and fail, will all those others opinions be there to help us?

In this quest to find out exactly who I am, and what I want, and what that actual bliss is that I'm meant to follow, I'm finding my voice in the silences.

"In restless dreams I walked aloneNarrow streets of cobblestone,neath the halo of a street lamp,I turned my collar to the cold and dampWhen my eyes were stabbed by the flash ofA neon lightThat split the nightAnd touched the sound of silence."

I still remember the first time I ever heard this song. Someone made me a mixed tape and had slipped it into my bag when we were leaving a club, in the wee hours of morning, somewhere in Hollywood. Funny, I really don't recall the night all that well, or where we are, but I do remember the tape.

I'd loved Bowie for years by this point, and had favourites of my own, but this was one song I'd never heard before. From that moment on, it not only became my favourite Bowie song, but one of my all-time favourite songs ever.

I drove around in that first car I had, listening to it with the windows rolled down, singing along. The song would end, I'd hit rewind, turn down a side street to lengthen the trip, and listen again. I had this image in my head, a scene from a film, or a story just starting to form, that had the ocean in the distance, and a boy and a girl in a bittersweet embrace. It was painted with melancholy in my imagination, one of those moments where you know you are saying goodbye, for what might be forever, and are not quite sure you know how you'll let go.

I still have that image in my head, just perhaps a bit more defined, one might say.

"Call me on your way back home dear,cause I miss you,and I just wanna die without you."

'Call me On Your Way Back Home' ~ Ryan Adams

I suppose there is something adolescent in thinking you cannot live without someone. I mean, at a certain age it becomes clear that you can live without anyone, and anything, because after awhile we all come face to face with loss. We learn to live through things that we think will destroy us, and we get to the other side sometimes and look back wondering what we were thinking in the first place. We brush ourselves off, we change our hair, we decide that going on is the only thing there is left to do.

The older we get the more the world becomes impatient with us. We are expected to sort it out, hold it together, get over things fast. People ask us if we are alright, but most often they do not want, nor wait, for the honest answer. Lovers break apart and before any healing has been allowed to occur we have moved on to someone else. Bodies shifting and names changing, we cling to the physical justification that we still exist, that someone wants us, that we are getting on and over with it; that we will not die without that someone we've lost.

All the psycho-babble could fill library shelves, top to bottom, and they would all say the same. Dependency is a bad word, right up there with heartbreak and need. Only the music makers and the writers of poetry and prose get to mourn anymore. So, we cling to the songs, and to the writings, and sit alone in the dark singing along, memorizing words, relating to every turn of phrase, shedding our tears along with them. Perhaps that makes us feel less alone in the world, and less immature to feel so torn up and broken inside.

But maybe, just maybe, it is okay to not want to live without someone. You will live on, regardless, and deep down you know it - I know it. But, you can still not want to lose someone who means the world to you. You can feel shattered when they feel lost from you, and miss them so terribly that you truly believe you will never recover. There are people that matter that much to us, and that isn't adolescent, or pathetic, or a bad thing - it is actually a beautiful thing to feel that way, to love that way, to have people who matter in that way. And you do not have to be a musician, or a writer, to feel that way - just honest, human, and alive.

"Oh I just wanna die without you,yeah I just wanna die without you.Without you honey, I aint nothing new."

"Said tomorrow would be fun,we could watch A Place in the Sun.I didn't know where this was going,when you kissed me."

Growing up, I inherited a love of film and music, and nearly unshakable insomnia, from my Mother. I would find myself tossing and turning through the night, and I'd lean my head towards the door, straining to hear whatever film my Mother was watching in the wee hours between late at night and early morning, out in our living room. Quite often it was a classic film, black and white flickers on a screen with some of the classic Hollywood actors keeping her company. Sometimes I would creep out into the hallway, each step taken carefully as our hardwood floors were prone to creaking, and I'd try to remain unnoticed, craning my neck just so, in order to be able to catch glimpses of whatever film was playing.

Often she pretended to not notice me there, though I know now she was never fooled. But, after awhile she would shake her head and say, "just come in and join me."

Elizabeth Taylor was one of my early favourites. Her stunning looks and demeanor took my breath away. All dark hair and pale skin, and sparkling eyes that I would later learn were an unusual shade of violet. She had this air of melancholy about her, and a strange mixture of innocence and worldliness that seemed to emanate from every pore. I was fascinated by the roles she played, and by the way she carried herself in all of the varying roles I found myself devouring in those long, still hours of no longer night and not yet morning.

In my adolescence, when a theatre teacher told me that I reminded her of a young Elizabeth Taylor I was dumbfounded, and nearly burst into tears. I never saw myself as anything like her, nor would I again, but for that split-second I felt as if her mystique had slipped momentarily underneath my skin, and shone out of me, as those old films glowed out of our rabbit-eared second-hand television.

A Place in the Sun is about impossible love, bad timing, deception and loss. It is based on the novel, An American Tragedy, so I suppose there is no mistaken this for a Hollywood ending "they lived happily ever after" kind of number. And this definitely does not end happily, though I suppose there are moments "in the sun", and those stolen confessions in the moonlight when two people end up in each other's arms whether it should have ever happened, or come to be, at all.

Love ending at the electric chair, well I suppose that deserves the title of tragedy, doesn't it?

Odd then for it to be name-checked in Lily Allen's more hopeful song, 'Who'd ofKnown', right at the moment when two friends take that hesitant step into being something more. Was it simply chosen because it fit the rhyme and rhythm of a pop song, or is it meant to be some kind of foreshadowing? I suppose I have my own set of biases that colour such a question, though I think a part of me will always say love borne of friendship has the most amazing of potentials.